If you're wondering about the dump trucks recently going in and out of the 26th Street access to Red Rock Canyon Open Space, they are bringing in clay “to maintain
and repair the cap on the old landfill,” according to Chris Lieber, management director for City Parks.

An empty dump truck approaches the 26th Street exit from Red Rock Canyon Open Space this week, on its way to pick up more clay
that will become cap material for Red Rock's former old Bock landfill .

Westside Pioneer photo

“As the organic material in the landfill continues to decompose, periodic settling in the landfill cap occurs,” he explained. “Additional material is required to fill the areas
that have settled.”
The trucks are scheduled to continue working through mid-January, and will eventually spread 15,000 cubic yards of clay material atop of the 53-acre site, Lieber
said this week.
The clay is coming from “a variety of sources,” he added. “We have been receiving excess material from a variety of Colorado Springs Utilities projects and
construction sites. The latest material is coming from a construction project near Uintah and Hancock. Throughout the project, all of the clay material has been free -
with the exception of trucking expenses.”
Lieber said the work is in keeping with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment requirements. Those same requirements have put a “half-life” on the
landfill, deeming it off-limits to Red Rock users until at least the year 2020 because of its methane gases.
The landfill was created in 1970 by the Bock family, which owned the 788.1-acre Red Rock property for about 80 years before selling it to the city as open space in
2003. Between 1970 and 1986, the site was one of the area's main trash sites. According to the city's Management Plan for Red Rock Canyon, the Bocks put a
dump at that location so as to fill in what was then a deep ravine and make it usable for a golf course. (At the time, John and his brother, Richard Bock, were
envisioning a major residential-commercial development on the property.)
The trucks now are using the access road off 26th (a few hundred feet north of Gold Camp Road) that was formerly the entrance to the dump.